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New research from market research firm EEDAR suggests that many perceptions about free-to-play gamers are wide of the mark.

It's interviewed 3,000 active mobile gamers in North America as part of its Deconstructing Mobile & Tablet Gaming 2013 study.

The conclusion is that an overwhelming percentage of heavy spenders felt they were "getting their money's worth" with their purchases.

Empowering play with pay

Or put another way, over three-quarters (75 percent) of the players that spent $50 or more on a game and over two thirds (67 percent) of players that spent $100 or more on a game stated they were satisfied with their experience.

Leading the charge of games referenced in the study were King's Candy Crush Saga, which represented 22 percent of the sample, and Supercell's Clash of Clans, which represented 9 percent.

Of those respondents who spent $50 or more on a single mobile game, 34 percent of their gaming time was spent on a smartphone, 19 percent on a tablet, 17 percent on a console, 6 percent on a gaming handheld, and 24 percent on a PC.

Thus, while a $50 in-app purchase might not deliver the same amount of content as a $50 triple-A console game, heavy mobile spenders recognize - and enjoy - the value of both.

Bringing it all together

Speaking on the data points collected during the study, EEDAR's senior analyst Patrick Walker lays out exactly where detreactors are mistaken with its impressions of free-to-play gamers.

"Critics of the free-to play-business model state that the model takes advantage of heavy spenders by leveraging impulsive buying behaviors rather than providing true gameplay value," he says.

"However, when asked, the majority of heavy spenders endorse that they are satisfied with the purchases made in the mobile games on which they spend the most money.

"In addition, these heavy mobile spenders play on a broad variety of platforms, including consoles, and understand the value proposition supplied across different business models, and still choose to purchase microtransactions."

Those interested in reading the study in full, or learning more about EEDAR, can do so by visiting its website.

Representing the former colonies, Matt keeps the Pocket Gamer news feed updated when sleepy Europeans are sleeping. As a frustrated journalist, diehard gamer and recovering MMO addict, this is pretty much his dream job.

I absolutely agree that time matters. We framed the question to target people that had already churned. The interesting question to me is whether people are satisfied after they have left their experience because this informs whether they will return go another game and spend just as much.

"My expectation is that satisfaction would correlate heavily with metacritic score."

I fully agree. And previous EEDAR research shows that review scores correlate very strongly with sales in the console market. If we combine that with the fairly reasonable assumption that those people who spend a lot on gaming are more likely to read those reviews, it suggests a situation where the people who spend the most on console gaming get the most satisfaction, right?
Which is in direct contrast to what we see in the above graph, where more money spent equates to less satisfaction, or at very least diminishing returns.

"My expectation was that people spending so much money and lacking closure (whats the end-game pay off in most F2P experiences?) would feel like they did not get their money's worth."

I think this varies hugely with WHEN you ask the question. If these games really are addictive, and really do play on human psychology, then it would be perfectly reasonable to expect that at some point, people would realise it and vow to quit, considering their time and money to be wasted (google "candy crush addict" for many stories about this). But crucially, before that point, like the gambler at the slot machine, they would likely tell you that everything was great. Wouldn't you agree?

But I think the broader point is that if someone is saying that they feel like their money was well spent why is it the role of someone else to tell them that it wasn't.

At that point the negative ramifications of whale-like spending should be judged by the negative consequences to someones life, such as not being able to pay their bills. This is often why whale-like behavior in a casino is judged- because of the negative consequences it has on the lives of the addict.

I actually wrote that question into the survey expecting a different result. My expectation was that people spending so much money and lacking closure (whats the end-game pay off in most F2P experiences?) would feel like they did not get their money's worth.

Well that sounds a lot more reliable then.
I'm curious though Jon, do you agree with what seems to be the assumption underlying this question - that if these games were just skinner boxes, then the people who paid money into them would all feel like they were ripped off?
Isn't this like trying to find out if slot machines are good value for money only by asking recent gamblers or people still sitting at the machines?

I'm inclined to agree with Alex. The idea that we can simply take their word for it flies in the face of almost every kind of exploitative behaviour. Or, to give a less hostile example, notice how many people will look for positive reviews of a product online after they've already bought it - people will rarely admit that they threw money away on anything, and are even less likely to admit to being conned.
The other interesting point not covered here is that the graph above is trending down. Put another bar at 100% for the non-payers (who must have gotten their money's worth, by definition) and it looks like there's an inverse relationship between the amount spent and the feeling of value. Considering the F2P industry's mantra that they're simply allowing their biggest fans to pay more for the games they love, one should not expect the highest payers to feel less satisfied than those who paid less, and it most certainly doesn't support his conclusions.
To put it another way, if you're making a product where over 95% of people who try it don't pay, and 1/3 of your biggest customers didn't feel like they got their money's worth, even after you let them try it for free, is that something to crow about?

Also on that note - the article says they surveyed 3,000 gamers. Given the expected conversion rates, wouldn't that actually make for a very small sample size of payers?

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